UK MPs Sign Early Day Motion Calling for the Release of All Incarcerated Falun Gong Practitioners

On November 8th 2005, UK MP David Howarth put forward an Early Day Motion (EDM 966) entitled "RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN CHINA". The Motion calls for the release from prison of all Falun Gong practitioners and has already received 37 signatures from UK MPs. The Motion also calls for Falun Gong practitioners to be free to practise and supports an end to the discrimination in China that stops Falun Gong practitioners getting employment, something which occurred after former Chinese Communist Party (CCP) head Jiang Zemin ordered CCP officials to "destroy Falun Gong practitioners physically, bankrupt them financially and ruin their reputations".

An Early Day Motion, or EDM, is a motion put down ("tabled") by Members of Parliament calling for a debate on a particular subject. Their true modern-day purpose is to enable MPs to draw attention to an issue and to canvass support for their views by inviting other Members to add their signatures in support of the motion. Members may also table amendments to existing EDMs. Please find below the full text of EDM 966.

"That this House calls on the Chinese government to release from detention and incarceration all Falun Gong practitioners and all others held for the peaceful expression or practice of their beliefs, to permit the resumption of free public and private religious practice, including that of Falun Gong practitioners, to desist from all discrimination in access to public services and employment against Falun Gong practitioners, to abolish the system of re-education through labour of religious believers, and to remove from its criminal code all provisions criminalising peaceful religious organisations; and urges the Chinese government to implement the recommendations of the UN Committee Against Torture, to allow domestic and foreign human rights observers to attend criminal trials, and to revise regulations that effectively censor the media and the internet and that interfere with the freedom to seek, receive and impart information in accordance with international human rights standards."